Rot
by Laurie M
Summary: A fanfic for Alfred Hitchcock's 'North by Northwest'. Eve Kendall reflects on how her life has turned out - and has an unexpected encounter.


The Manhattan air was cool that evening, the bitterness that edged the chill hinted at the onset of Fall. Eve welcomed the bite against her cheeks; it numbed them after the ache of holding an enforced smile. The last time, she told herself, it was the last time she went to one of Roger's mother's bridge parties.

She had said that the last time.

She liked Roger's mother. She liked her easy-going approach to life and the put-downs that were always accompanied by a sparkle in her eyes. She even liked her friends. But she couldn't take another night of it, even though Roger was so pleased that they all got on so well. She hadn't married him to be entertainment for his mother-

That was unfair.

Eve pulled on her gloves, fiddled with the buttons that fastened tight across her wrist, stepped into the cab that the doorman called for her.

'It's bumper-to-bumper up Madison, lady,' the driver told her.

'That's all right.'

A stop-start journey, black streaked with neon when they moved and when stationary she stared out of the window, watched the men and women in their own separate worlds negotiate around each other and the way that couples always seemed to be couples, moving together.

Eve settled into the seat and its smell of worn leather, soap, cheap aftershave and the thousand-and-one others scents of all the fares who had occupied this space before her.

There was a nick on the side of the driver's neck, half-an-inch above the collar. The scab was still bright, maybe from just before he came on duty. A fleck of dried foam on his ear. She shook herself, tried to make herself stop looking. It was hard sometimes, still, not to notice things.

She was delivered to the hotel, paid off the driver and smiled pleasantly as the doorman bowed her in. It was colder now, much colder, it had been cold in the cab, and the lobby felt pleasantly warm. It smelt the way expensive hotels always smelt, something she could never quite define, but the familiarity brought a certain reassurance. Perhaps that was the point. She crossed the lobby, pulling off her gloves, flexing her fingers, turned to the right past one of the numerous potted plants into the entrance of the restaurant and worked up another pleasant smile for the maître'd.

'Thornhill - we have reservations.'

'Ah, Mrs Thornhill.' He smiled. She smiled. He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping, and she knew already. 'Mr Thornhill... Apparently, he just missed you before you left. He-'

'Won't be able to make it.'

Elegant shoulders rose and fell, hands spread apologetically. 'We have your table; of course, we will happily re-arrange it for one.'

'No. Thank you.'

Across the lobby again and she paused halfway. Two men sitting opposite each other in armchairs in the middle of an animated discussion, one of them holding a drink in which the ice had melted long ago; a couple in an alcove, not talking, just looking, an illicit pair; they looked far too happy to be anything but-

She caught herself, again, at that thought.

And she didn't feel like going back to that empty apartment, so she continued her path across the hotel lobby, but at a different angle until she reached the bar and pulled herself up onto one of the red leather stools and placed her gloves and her purse neatly across her knees and ordered a vodka martini when she caught the barman's eye. It arrived, a silvery pool lapping against the glass' clear embrace.

Eve captured the cocktail stick speared through the olive and stirred it around the liquid. A droplet of condensation ran down the bowl of the glass and she captured it with her finger, felt the wet cold penetrate her skin; she took some of the drink and it was icy against her teeth. The glass was replaced carefully on the coaster.

So many nights spent chasing phonecalls, so many apologies and she could see Roger's mother rolling her eyes and telling her _there was this one time_-

She took more of her drink, sucked it in along with the air that felt thin. It wouldn't feel like this later. Later, it was always all right. She replaced the glass.

'Hello, Eve.'

Her hand tightened around the stem; the sounds of muted voices and laughter and discreet waiters receded; her breathing stopped and she felt every beat that her heart did not take in those seconds. She knew that voice, all velvet softness and, just like velvet, it could be rough, harsh, when rubbed the wrong way. She pulled in a breath and the world poured back in and she turned slightly on the stool and she faced him.

'Hello, Philip.'

The same easy movements when he sat beside her, only the slightest motion of his head and hand and the barman was attentive, bringing the scotch-and-ice seemingly before it was asked for. His hair was a little longer, more silvered at the temples, his face a little thinner, but no more than that. He was the same. And he was here, and he shouldn't be.

Eve pulled in another breath, tilted her head back and looked down her eyes at him.

'Should I be expecting police cars any second?'

'I'm not a wanted man, my dear. There's no reason at all why I shouldn't be enjoying a drink with an old friend.' He drew out the words, every letter falling like steel.

'What are you doing here?'

He let out a long breath, his expression somewhere between pity and disappointment. 'I had hoped that we could dispense with the obvious exchange.'

'Obvious?'

'Yes. You ask what I'm doing here, I reply that I am merely having a drink. As I recall, you used to have more imagination.'

She felt colour spear her cheeks and despised herself for it. Eve raised her chin, kept her shoulders squared and set and looked at him fully and saw the quirk at the corners of his mouth and despised that, too. 'All right. Perhaps I should ask how you've been finding the weather lately. It's been a little muggy for this time of year, don't you think?'

The quirk developed into a curve. 'Better; although, still not quite your best.'

'You'll have to forgive me - I'm out of practice.'

'Evidently.'

The first time she had seen Philip Vandamm she had been standing on the balcony of a penthouse on Fifth Avenue, lounge music and laughter trickling through on the night air and then someone had commented that despite the gaiety it was a boring party, just like all the parties that were probably occurring at their altitude, that she was bored and he was bored and when she had turned to look at the speaker she had found a handsome face and easy charm and he had smiled slightly and she had smiled back. It hadn't been just that there was nothing else for her to do that weekend - she had wanted him then, from the start, and he had known it, but for a weekend they had played the game and she had wanted that, too.

Now he leaned against the bar, unconcerned, still smiling slightly, and she wanted to rake her nails across that handsome, complacent face.

'Don't tell me you've already sewed so many mailbags that they've let you out for good behaviour.'

The smile widened, appreciation. 'Oh, nothing so mundane. I was not a guest at your government's pleasure for very long - and the facility at which I was held was not noticeably stringent. I'm not sure whether to feel flattered or insulted.'

'Maybe you're just not as important as we all thought.'

'Or maybe even more so.'

Eve set her teeth together hard. 'Then you should be flattered.'

His shoulders rose and fell, modest, and his eyes had not moved from her face. 'I know it isn't my presence, however unexpected, that's taken the colour from your cheeks, my dear. Marriage doesn't seem to agree with you - I can't say I'm sorry.'

Tension running up her spin, along her shoulders, twisting up into her jaw, bunching it, her teeth held tight together. 'I am very happily married.'

His head tilted. 'You used to be a better liar. Would you care for another?'

Her gaze moved to her glass and she noted with a dull surprise that it was empty. Not that much surprise, perhaps; it took a little more to have the same effect lately, even under less exigent circumstances.

Another slight motion of head and hand and the barman moved with a noiseless rush; her glass was swept away and another put in its place.

'Thank you,' she murmured automatically. Her fingers wrapped around the stem, toyed with it. Philip had taken little of his drink, if any. Eve rested the tips of her fingers on the base of the glass and looked at him fully, directly.

'What are you doing here?'

A breath in through his nose, then let out lightly and he tilted his head back a little, looking down at her. 'I wanted to see you.'

'You've seen me.'

'I wanted to talk to you.'

'We've talked.'

'Not quite.'

She sat and looked at him.

He picked up his glass, put it back, picked it up again, raised it to his lips and took a small sip, another, put it back. 'It's a pity you gave up your work' -he didn't look at her- 'your designs were very good. What do you do with your days?'

'I keep busy.' Her jaw ached.

'Yes... Getting ready for all those bridge parties is time consuming.'

She felt her head jerk and saw the flash in his eyes and the hand lying in her lap balled into a fist so tight she felt her nails tear into her flesh. 'How long have you been following me around?'

'Oh, long enough. I had an idea that you might be interested in an occupation to fill in all of those long hours before your husband comes home from ... Madison Avenue, isn't it?'

'You know it is.'

He nodded, thoughtful. 'Fascinating line of work - selling people things they think they want and don't really need.'

'At least it's honest. And it doesn't get anyone killed.'

'But still rather dull.'

She had welcomed the quiet life that his first two wives had left him over. Watching bodies tumble through the air, hearing screams caught up on the wind, feeling the stones shift and crumble under her feet and clinging onto Roger's hand, the only thing that would save her, yes, the quiet life had been all that she wanted. Nice people, good people, who didn't hurt anyone, who paid calls and played bridge and discussed the weather and the latest tax rises and the new shows on Broadway.

Men who were kind and placating, and women with brittle laughter and frighteningly empty eyes. There was desperation behind all of that quiet.

'What on earth-' She swallowed hard past the ball in her throat. 'What on earth makes you think that I would have anything to do with you? I know what you are, remember? I know the things you've done and when I first heard about it I felt sick. It still makes me sick. I wasn't a traitor then, and I am certainly not going to be one now.'

She might have imagined the tightening around his lips but she could not be certain - the moment was too fleeting, the lighting in the bar too soft and diffuse for her to get a read on all of his angles. He turned his head slightly and she watched the sheen of his skin, the modelling of the hollow of his temple, the dark wave of hair swept back from his forehead.

'Whoever said anything about betrayal? You'd still be working for what you believe in; your friend the Professor can vouch for that.'

'The Profes-' Eve frowned, shook her head sharply. 'You're working for the Professor?'

His lips pushed out, in, considering. 'Let's say that we have an understanding.'

Eve leaned one elbow heavily against the bar. 'So... After all that you're nothing more than a common spy, loyalty sold to the highest bidder.'

'Uncommon, my dear.' He watched her over the rim of his glass. The drink didn't seem to please him: distaste was fleeting across his face and he replaced the glass on the bartop, holding it between thumb and forefinger. His voice was lowered again when he spoke, a tone like thick black honey. 'There are, after all, many ways of ... guarding ... an ideal.'

Her eyebrows rose. 'Ideal? I didn't know you had any.'

That flicker around the corners of his mouth again. 'Odd, isn't it? All our time together, and yet we still knew each other so little. Now, that seems to be something that needs rectifying, don't you think?'

'No.' It sounded forced, a word pushed out through gritted teeth.

His hands rested lightly on the bartop, fingers linked; his eyes stayed on her face. 'Pity. I'm in need of someone resourceful and intelligent ever since Leonard's unfortunate demise.'

'It wasn't that unfortunate from where I was.'

His head tilted again, conceding. 'Probably not.'

A pause then and the sounds of the bar and the hotel beyond rushed lightly around them. The barman cast an eye in their direction now and then but as his services were not needed he kept his distance.

Eve knew the sensations of her fear: the prickling across her scalp, the sudden rush of heat across her skin followed by a chill, and the way her chest would feel hollowed, heart beating tinnily in the centre. None of that, she noted, almost disinterestedly, no tightening in her throat, not the slight loss of feeling in her cheeks. After that initial shock she had fallen into an old rhythm and the ease of it was, perhaps, the unsettling thing. And there was a prickle under her skin, not of fear, this was something else, old and familiar.

There was a tremor in her fingers that she could just about control when she dipped into her purse for her cigarettes. He took the case from her, and her lighter, extracted one of the slim white cylinders, held it out to her. She took almost unconsciously, placed it between her lips, leant forward to catch the flame and looked up at him, saw the reflecting spark dance in his dark eyes. She sat back; he flicked the lighter closed. Eve took the smoke in deep, felt it sear her lungs, the burn spearing through.

He slid the cigarette case and the lighter back into her bag, the tips of his fingers resting close to it. 'No gun in there anymore.'

Smoke drifted in the air between them. 'An oversight, obviously. If I'd known you'd be here I'd have made sure to bring one.'

'With real bullets?'

'Naturally.'

His lips twitched again.

Eve stubbed out the cigarette, leant forward only a few inches. 'What made you think that I would have anything more to do with you? Under any circumstances?'

Philip took in a breath, answered with the easily politeness he would have used to an acquaintance, someone who only knew him as the cultured, sophisticated businessman he appeared to be. He would probably say that that was all he had even been. 'The role of a Manhattan matron isn't for you. All those coffee mornings, charitable concerns ... bridge parties. The dinners for your husband's business associates.'

'Roger,' she said, impatience biting her voice, 'his name is Roger.'

His hands spread, joined together again. 'Not quite what you're used to. Worthy, perhaps, but not really worthwhile.' She stirred on her seat, back stiffening. 'Yes, the Professor told me about how he recruited you, told me much of what was said - what you told him.' He studied her again and his look was almost pitying. 'He plays it well, the absent-minded amiable academic but you know as well as I do that it's a persona. He'll say what he needs to in order to get what he wants, just like the rest of us.'

'I see.'

'I thought you might.'

'Well, whatever it is that you want here, Philip, you are not going to get it.' Eve slid off the stool; he moved at the same time and they were in close proximity when they stood, facing each other; he still wore the same cologne, subtle and warm and expensive.

'Call the Professor when you're ready.'

'I won't be calling him.'

'Yes, you will.'

She raised her chin. 'Oh, you know that?'

'The same way I know you won't be telling Roger about our little meeting here tonight.'

She felt the breath flutter behind her ribcage; Philip smiled again slightly. One hand under her elbow and he pulled her closer to him. 'As I said, my dear, you used to be a better liar.' His fingers pressed lightly; Eve extricated herself, picked up her purse and her gloves, started across to the lobby and the freedom of the street beyond. He would be watching her, she knew that, could feel his eyes like a blow between her shoulder-blades.

Cold air snapped. Her hands shook as she pulled on her gloves, not from the cold, not from fear, not even from distress.

At home she was calm and when she smiled she didn't feel the ache in her cheeks. Roger couldn't tell when she was lying; which, Eve thought, was probably just as well.


End file.
